So it’s over, Daisy thought. She closed the book carefully and sat staring at the cover for a long time, lost in thought. Mister Sheppard/Sweeney had killed his young wife--probably two young wives--and gotten away with it. He never had to answer for his deeds. And not only that, he had abused his daughter, who had done nothing to incur such wrath.
Her musing was interrupted by the phone.
“Hello?”
“It’s Jude. I’m at the police station waiting for Mark John.”
“Did you find out why he was there?”
“They had more questions about Fiona’s death. They received a tip and wanted to talk to him.”
“How do you know?”
“The officer at the desk told me.”
“What was the tip?”
“I don’t know yet. I’ll have to wait to ask Mark John. Wait, here he comes. I’ll call you later.” She hung up.
Daisy sat back on the couch, her thoughts torn between the story she had read and the one playing out in a suburban police station nearby. What information could the police have gotten about Fiona’s death? Not for the first time, Daisy wished she had known Fiona. She wondered what the woman had been like, what kind of a woman would marry Mark John and then cheat on him. She couldn’t imagine the fear Fiona must have felt during her last moments of life, with a stranger or strangers in her home, meaning her harm. Daisy shuddered at the thought.
She poured herself a glass of wine and watched the news for a little while before going to bed. She drifted off accompanied by thoughts of Trudy and of the Sheppard/Sweeney family. She hadn’t been asleep long when the phone rang. Jude again.
Daisy answered, her tone a bit testy because Jude had awakened her.
“Hello?”
“It’s me, Jude.” Daisy’s tone softened immediately when she heard Jude crying softly. She sat up in bed.
“Jude, what’s wrong?”
“Mark John is so angry about having to go down to the police station and I feel like he’s taking it out on me.” Another sob escaped her lips.
“Surely he knows you had nothing to do with it. Why is he mad at you?”
“Who knows? He’s just angry at the world, I think. He wants this whole Fiona thing behind him and now he’s been dragged back into it.”
“So you just happen to be the closest person right now.”
“Yeah, I guess so. He’s not usually like this. I’m just not used to seeing his ugly side, that’s all. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“It’s no problem. I’m sorry Mark John is being such a pill.” That got a short laugh out of Jude.
“Ha! He’s probably never been called that before. It describes his mood perfectly.”
“So what did the police learn that made them want to question Mark John again?”
“They wouldn’t tell him, but they asked questions about where he was the night Fiona died. He was working late. You know, he does that when there’s a big deadline coming up.”
Daisy nodded to herself. “We’ve all been known to do that. Did they want to know anything else?”
“I don’t think so. Mark John just mentioned that they asked about the time frame around when he got home from work.”
“Well, hopefully the police got the answers they needed and they can leave Mark John alone after this.”
“I hope so.”
“I’ll see you in the morning,” Daisy said, then the women hung up. She was relieved to be able to get right back to sleep.
Daisy wasn’t able to get back to the Library of Congress to view the dime novels in the microfilm room for several days because so much drama disrupted her routine at work. Jude swept into Daisy’s office two days after Mark John’s visit to the police station with tears streaming down her face.
“What’s wrong?” Daisy asked with a quickening sense of alarm.
“I’ll tell you what’s wrong,” Jude blubbered. “Mark John just told me he doesn’t think we should see each other anymore!”
It came as a bit of a bombshell, since the two of them seemed so well-suited. However, Jude had mentioned that he seemed more aloof lately…
“Did he tell you why he feels that way?” Daisy asked.
Jude blew her nose loudly into a tissue she had decimated. “No, only that it’s for my own good. What do you suppose he means by that? Do you think he’s been seeing someone else?” She looked at Daisy in horror, as if having that thought for the first time, then started crying harder.
“Whoa, now wait a minute. You’re jumping to some pretty big conclusions,” Daisy cautioned. “There could be lots of reasons he wants to back off a bit.”
Jude interrupted Daisy with a snort. “Back off? He wants nothing to do with me! How am I ever going to continue working here?”
I suppose that’s something you should have thought of before you started dating your boss, Daisy thought. Aloud she said, “It could be that he doesn’t feel ready for another serious relationship right now. Maybe it’s nothing more than a case of cold feet.”
“But why didn’t he say something when we first started to get serious?” Jude whined. “I could have dealt with it much better then.”
“Maybe he didn’t feel that way then. Maybe it’s just hitting him now.”
A knock at Daisy’s door interrupted them. “May I come in?” It was Mark John. Jude stared at Daisy with a look of terror.
“Don’t let him in!” she hissed. “I don’t want him to see me like this.”
“I can’t keep him out,” Daisy replied. “He’s the boss. I’ll go into the hall to see what he wants.” She opened the door a crack and squeezed into the hallway, then shut the door behind her quickly.
“What’s going on in there?” Mark John asked in a low, flat voice.
“Nothing. Why?”
“I’m not stupid, Daisy. I can hear her crying. Is she that upset?”
“Of course she’s that upset!” Daisy replied in an urgent whisper, gesticulating toward her door. “And why wouldn’t she be?”
“Just because I told her we need a break?” He sounded incredulous.
“Is that what you said? She said you didn’t want to see her anymore.”
“Sometimes she hears words that aren’t there. I just think we need a break.” He looked away, then back at Daisy. “Why am I telling you this, anyway?”
“Because you don’t want me to meet my next deadline?” she asked. “Because that’s what’s going to happen if I can’t get any work done around here.” He rolled his eyes in response.
“May I go in your office to talk to her?” he asked.
“Yes. But, Mark John, please don’t upset her anymore. God only knows why you waited until the two of you were at work to spring this on her.”
“I didn’t mean to. It just slipped out.”
“For an editor who prides himself on being a wordsmith, you sure picked the wrong words today,” Daisy said over her shoulder as she stalked to the conference room. Her computer and files were in her office, so all she could do was sit in the conference room and read a magazine until she finally heard the door to her office open and close quietly. A moment later Jude and Mark John appeared in the conference room doorway. Jude cleared her throat. Her eyes were still red and a little puffy, but they were dry.
“Daisy, thanks for letting us use your office. We had a talk and I think we both feel better about things.”
“You’re welcome,” Daisy replied. She wanted to know how their discussion had ended, but she didn’t want to seem nosy. And frankly, she was getting a little sick of the whole thing. Besides, she was likely to hear from Jude about it at some point.
“Can we all get back to work now?” Mark John asked in exasperation. Daisy nodded and returned to her office immediately. If Jude wanted to talk, she was going to have to wait. Daisy had a deadline to meet the next day before the close of business and couldn’t take any more time away from her writing and research to chit-chat.
But apparently Jude was of the opinion that once the workday ended, Daisy’s deadline evaporated. Daisy’s phone was ringing as she walked into her apartment after work that day. She answered it without checking the caller ID, but she had a good idea that it would be Jude.
“Hi. I called to let you know what happened between me and Mark John today.”
“Okay. What happened?”
“He told me that he’s been thinking a lot about Fiona’s death and is unsure whether he’s ready to move forward.”
“And what did you say? How did you feel about that?”
Jude let out a long sigh. “I told him I’d like him to think about it for a while and not make any rash decisions. And I’m not really sure how I feel about his explanation. I think he’s feeling this way because he was questioned again about Fiona’s death and because there’s still no one in custody for her murder. That weighs heavily on his mind, I know. I feel like if the police are able to figure out who killed Fiona, Mark John could rest easy and we could continue seeing each other.”
“Maybe it’s a good idea to do your own thinking while he’s mulling things over in his own mind.”
“I suppose you’re right.” Jude was silent for a long moment. “I should go. I’ll see you at work tomorrow.”
Daisy hung up, but then took the phone off the hook so she wouldn’t be bothered for the rest of the evening as she worked. She shut off her cell phone, too. She worked until the wee hours of the morning and finally went to bed when she figured she could reasonably expect to finish the work before five the next day.
She kept her office door locked the entire day at work so no drama could barge in to interrupt her. At five o’clock she went into Mark John’s office with a flash drive. “I present you the article on Middle Eastern schoolteachers you requested,” she said, handing over the flash drive with a flourish.
“I knew you’d make the deadline, drama or no drama,” he said dryly.
“Is it all right with you if I head over to the Library of Congress in the morning before I come to work?” she asked. “There’s some research I need to work on.”
“I suppose.”
Daisy stopped at a bakery on the way home for a bear claw, one of her favorite ways to celebrate the meeting of a deadline. While she waited in line her cell phone rang. It was Grover.
“Hey, you’re hard to get a hold of,” he said in greeting.
“Oh, sorry. I had both my phones off last night because I had a deadline today. What’s up?”
“I have another cancellation the day after tomorrow and I got two free tickets to a movie screening if you want to go. It’s a thriller, but it’s set in Egypt. I figured that would be right up your alley.”
“I’m an anthropologist, not an archaeologist,” she reminded him with a smile. “But I love thrillers. That sounds fun.”
“Why don’t we grab dinner first and then go to the screening,” he suggested. “I’ll meet you at Murphy’s Pub at six and we’ll head over to the screening at eight. The movie theater is right near Murphy’s.”
Daisy hung up the phone, paid for the bear claw, and walked the rest of the way to her apartment with a noticeable spring in her step.